These are the men who have built mega-fortunes from managing Britain's biggest companies.

Several years at the top of elite FTSE 100 firms have allowed a handful of bosses to net fortunes of around £100 million, a Daily Mail pay audit found.

Top of the pile is Tony Pidgley, who has earned close to £115 million in the last 16 years as the founder and now chairman of leading housebuilder Berkeley Homes.

These are the men who have built mega-fortunes from managing Britain's biggest companies. Top of the pile is Tony Pidgley, pictured right, who has earned close to £115 million in the last 16 years as the founder and now chairman of leading housebuilder Berkeley Homes

A former Barnado's boy who was adopted and raised by travellers, Pidgley left school at 15 to start his own haulage business. He sold it when he was 19 and co-founded Berkeley Group in 1976, while he was still in his 20s, which he developed into a FTSE 100 high-flyer.

Pidgley's wealth is widely seen in the City as just rewards for entrepreneurialism and risk-taking, whereas many other chief executives are seen as managers who have hauled in excessive rewards.

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These include Rakesh Kapoor – the boss of Reckitt Benckiser – who will pass £100 million in total earnings before he retires this year. And the former boss of disgraced housebuilder Persimmon, Jeff Fairburn, who took home £93.5 million in earnings in just six years.

Fairburn was forced to resign amid a furious backlash against a £75 million bonus, awarded over the last two years on the back of profits boosted by the taxpayer-funded Help to Buy scheme.

Some chief executives on the list earn hundreds of times more than the workers they employ.

Mara Lilley, campaigns manager at ShareAction, which works with City fund managers to promote responsible investment, said: 'These pay packets are unconscionable in light of growing inequality for workers who are barely staying afloat.'

The revelations come at a time when firms are under increasing scrutiny from shareholders and the public over high pay.

Last year the Investment Association issued a list of guidelines as it expressed frustration that companies were not listening to investors' feedback on pay.

Among the top earners are many names who will be unfamiliar to the public despite their vast wealth. Bob Dudley, 63, chief executive of BP, has raked in £97.2m in earnings, bonuses and pension contributions at today's dollar exchange rate.

Last year alone he earned £12 million, more than 100 times the median BP employee's salary, according to company figures.

Kapoor has earned close to £98 million in eight years, according to accounts published earlier this year. He took home £15.2 million last year, 360 times more than an employee on mean average income, despite a cyber-attack and manufacturing disruption hampering performance in his last two years in the role.

At Ladbrokes's owner GVC, chief executive Kenny Alexander and chairman Lee Feldman received a combined £54.8 million in the last two years despite more than 40pc of shareholders revolting against the pay report in each case.

Other chief executives who made the list of top earners included Erik Engstrom, of RELX, who has pocketed £80.3 million in ten years and Unilever's Paul Polman, who has earned £76.5 million in the last decade.